Category: The Economy

by Richard Cameron Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired this morning (Tuesday) by Donald Trump. Trump’s manner of communicating the dismissal was via Twitter around 8:44 a.m. Eastern Time. . Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2018 The State Department issued…

by Wes Walker via libertyisftw.org The most recent job numbers released on March 9th by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, represented a strong preliminary number for February that, should they hold, could be a solid piece of good economic news since the tax reform bill passed last year. It remains likely that the numbers will not survive the tariffs put into place last week, assuming they aren’t revised downward next month, and, despite the bump in the stock market from the positive preliminary jobs numbers, it’s important to keep in…

By Janice Barlow “Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government” – Milton Friedman AS OUR NATION ROLLS ALONG, it seems that not a day goes by without some new drama hitting the airwaves from Washington. If it isn’t someone being fired or resigning, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to a horrific event, like modifying the Second Amendment because of a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, or a tweet-storm from the Commander-in-Chief about North Korea. We…

by Tony Wyman We have witnessed this month the spiralling descent of a presidency doomed from the start. The media proclaimed recent revelations and departures to be “astounding” and “shocking,” but they are neither. Instead, what they are is inevitable. From the start of his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that he was little more than a political vandal, a man intent upon creating as much conflict, discord and destruction as possible, and that he would leave in his wake lives wrecked and institutions weakened,…

by Wes Walker via libertyisftw.org Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.” –Milton Friedman So Donald Trump‘s grand plan to restore America’s Rustbelt is slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and starting a trade war. His economically illiterate supporters, convinced as they are that flag waving and howling “‘Murica!” at anyone that doesn’t look like them constitutes sound economic policy, are predictably on board. Meanwhile, the left will oppose Donald’s plan, albeit…

by Wes Walker via libertyisftw.org It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” –Murray N. Rothbard The lights in Caracas went out. Vandals, says the government. Grocery store shelves are bare of basic necessities, and when they aren’t bare, the prices for food are so high, some people are…

by Wes Walker via libertyisftw.org If you got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” -Barack Obama, 2012 The Bureau of Economic Analysis released its initial number for Q4 2017 on Friday, and the usual media forces have turned it over as much as it probably bear to be turned over, but it is still worth mentioning a couple of things about the “advance” number. At 2.6%, it is considerably below the 3.0% number that was broadly expected by the market, but this cannot simply…

GOP and President Trump play Santa to Corporations and One Percenters President Donald Trump called the recently-passed tax bill “an incredible Christmas gift” for middle-class Americans. In reality, the tax bill takes money from the pockets of middle-class Americans and gives it to corporations. Anyone who claims the tax bill primarily benefits the middle class is spreading falsehoods. With the new bill, the tax rate for corporations is reduced from 35 percent to 21 percent. That makes a total reduction of 40 percent from what they were paying earlier. Other…

by Richard Cameron The GOP House missed the target date for public release of their tax ‘reform’ plan yesterday, but claim that the plan will see the light of day on Thursday. Reportedly, the reason behind the re-scheduling, which may well see further delays, is that there is disagreement within the ranks about who wins and who loses and to what extent. They may not frame it in those terms, but there is one other certainty besides death and taxes and that is that all tax plans, by nature and…

By Janice Barlow On my way back from an appointment today, I cringed, but put Rush Limbaugh on the radio as nothing else was on. I wanted to see what he was addressing in his latest ratings grabbing excuse while trying to justify the presidency of Donald J. Trump. Yes, Rush, we know Hillary Clinton is a liberal, a liar, and has a uranium problem. Yes, we know Barack Obama was a huge deficit spending, big government pushing progressive socialist enabler in the form of welfare programs and government controlled…